Daily Devotion for April 5, 2006

To Jerusalem with the ComPassionate Christ
Day 36

 

Golgotha

 

They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull).  Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.  Mark 15: 22-23

 

They brought Jesus to the place called, in Hebrew, ‘The Skull’ or Gulgoleth. From our English Bibles, we know it as Golgotha. Tradition has it that it was a little knoll, or hill, just outside the city walls (as in Hebrews 13:12). It happened to be shaped somewhat like a human skull, and so it gained its grizzly reputation as the hill upon which the condemned criminals breathed their last. It is unlikely to have been ‘a green hill far away, without a city wall.’ Most probably it was a desolate place, shunned by the orthodox as unclean, a haunt for the curious, the outcast and the bloodthirsty.

 

Soldiers offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with myrrh, to dull His senses and reduce the pain. This was a merciful custom, much like the strangulation of those due to be burned at the stake in medieval days. However, mercy should not really be identified with degrees of cruelty. This was still a horrible fate, especially considering that the recipient was an innocent man.

 

Jesus refused the wine. He did not want to use a drug to ease the sufferings He was about to endure. After all, He was not suffering for His own sins; He was intending to take upon His shoulders the sin of the world. Given that the burden was to be so huge and terrifying, He did not want to take the chance that, in a drugged state; He might say or do something that could jeopardize the salvation He was working to win at so great a cost. The grief and bitter passion were all for ‘sinners’ gain. Ours was the transgression, but His the deadly pain.  His Pain for our Gain.

 

Prayer
Lord, when I think about the extent you went to for me, I am filled with awe.  For me?  Why couldn’t it be done a different way?  But in Your wisdom, this was the only way, Your Pain for MY gain.  Thank you!  Amen

 

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